An office has one wireless access point that employees connect their laptops to.
Describe how connecting more devices to the wireless access point can affect the speed and latency of the network.
Mark scheme
Award up to two marks for a linked description such as:
- The bandwidth/capacity of the access point is shared between all the connected devices (1) so each device gets less bandwidth as more devices connect, which reduces the speed of data transfer (1)
- The devices have to take turns to transmit (contention) (1) so each device waits longer before it can send data, which increases latency (1)
- The access point can only support a maximum number of connections (1) so once this limit is reached, further devices cannot connect to the network (1)
Allow 'contention' as an alternative to devices having to take turns to transmit.
Allow 'the network becomes slower' as the second mark only where it is linked to shared bandwidth, to devices taking turns to transmit or to the maximum number of connections.
Do not accept a response that only states the network becomes slower, or that there are more devices/more traffic, without saying how this affects performance.
Do not accept responses about range or interference unless they are linked to the number of connected devices.
Example answers and how they were marked
All of the connected devices share the bandwidth of the access point, so as more devices are added each device gets less bandwidth and data is transferred more slowly.
Why: Shared bandwidth point (1) developed into the effect on the speed of data transfer (1).
The bandwidth of the access point has to be shared between all the devices that are connected to it.
Why: Correct point that bandwidth is shared (1), but there is no development saying how this affects the speed or latency, so only one mark.
Each device gets its own bandwidth from the access point, so adding more devices does not change the speed.
Why: Misconception that bandwidth is not shared, so no creditworthy point is made.